


Families of Choice

by snewvilliurs



Series: The NORA House Chronicles [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2013-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-28 13:10:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snewvilliurs/pseuds/snewvilliurs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set pre-XIII, about ten years before the events of the game.  A glimpse into Snow and Gadot's friendship with Lebreau at the orphanage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Families of Choice

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written as a quick headcanon thing for my Lebreau RP blog, but I was really proud of how it turned out, so why not share it here?

The light stick Gadot held between his fingers was dim where he let his arm dangle from the side of his bed, barely enough for Snow to see the book in his lap where he sat on his own bed, on the bottom bunk.  A groggy sort of silence reigned in the hallways now that the children had gone to sleep, and the sound of the door opening a crack was loud within the walls of their small room when Lebreau poked her head in.  Light from the lamps poured onto the floor in a small sliver, her shadow stretching long across the floorboards.  Everything in the orphanage creaked; the floor, the doors, the bed springs as Gadot sat up in his bed and leaned his weight on his elbow.

“Are you awake?”

“Come in quick,” Gadot said, waving the stick to usher her in.  Her small body, though it was starting to grow into feminine curves that the girls Gadot and Snow’s age barely had yet, slipped easily into the room, squeezing so that she wouldn’t have to open the door wider.  She closed the door quickly but quietly, with a hand covering the edge of it and the doorframe to make as little sound as possible.

Sneaking around was one of her favourite pastimes, along with her new-found passion for cooking and learning to handle firearms, both handed down to her by the orphanage’s cook, an ex-Guardian Corps officer who had turned to helping the children.  She wanted to be like him.

“You’re gonna be in so much trouble if you get caught,” Snow warned, though he had never been one for following rules; it drew a laugh from Lebreau as she padded over and drew the covers from the foot of the bed—she’d tuck them in later to make sure Snow’s toes didn’t get cold in the middle of the night, as he, too, was starting to grow, almost too tall for the kids’ beds—and slipped inside, bare feet tucked under Snow’s cotton-clad knee.

“You can just say I was sleepwalking again,” she said dismissively.  “You still working on that?”

Her chin gestured to the book in his hands.  Snow had never been good with reading; he was too energetic to sit through the words calmly, reading them one by one, and instead he caught sentences ahead of time and jumbled words together.  It was an effort for him to read every night before bed, but in the silence of their room, he had all the time he needed to force himself to stop over each word, unburdened by the pace that was set in class.  His curiosity had been piqued by an old book he’d found a few weeks ago, and his interest helped him soldier on, but he found it hard to focus when Lebreau sneaked into their room; instead, he had her read it out loud to him and Gadot, who was always lulled to sleep by her voice.

Wordlessly, Snow handed the book to her and took the light stick from Gadot’s hand—the top bunk creaked and moved as he burrowed into the covers and lay on his side—to hold it closer to the book for her to see.  She sat it on her lap, curled her toes so that they fit perfectly along the curve of Snow’s knee, and smiled at him before beginning to read.

_Luminous lamented,_  
 _for creation spiraled unto doom._  
 _Stout fashioned earth,_  
 _that future might take root._  
 _Sage turned mind's eye inward,_  
 _seeking truth profound._  
 _Fool desired naught,_  
 _and soon was made one with it._  
 _Maker forged fal'Cie,_  
 _from fragments Maker's own._  
 _Maker forged Man,_  
 _from traces once Divine._  
 _In time the gods departed,_  
 _leaving all by their hands wrought._  
 _Fal'Cie were as Man forsaken,_  
 _orphans of Maker absconded._

“Did you even get half of that?” she asked, raising her head to look at Snow, who shrugged.

“No, not really.”

“It does say here that the fal'Cie are orphans, too.  Like us.”

“Yeah.”

He yawned, and she did too, a few seconds later, which urged her to close the book and hand it back to Snow.  Diligently, he put it under his mattress, along with the light stick after he had deactivated it.  Lebreau didn’t stand; instead, she stretched out until she was lying down, her feet reaching above Snow’s waist next to him, though his went all the way up to her shoulders when he lay down as well.  In a few hours, she would wake up with an ache in her neck and shoulders and her hand completely asleep for using her arm as a pillow, and sneak back to her own bed quietly, unnoticed.  No one else would wake until sunrise, now that they were so far past curfew, and it was always better to fall asleep with her friends.

They were more like a family to her, anyway.


End file.
